- an infected animal at the market transmitted the virus to humans
- an infected human at the market transmitted the virus to humans
> This China-WHO report revealed a different picture from that given by media reports. The market was called a seafood market for a reason: most of the stalls were selling seafood and freshwater aquatic products. Crocodiles were being sold alive. Snakes and salamanders were being slaughtered on the spot for sale. From sales records in December 2019, just ten stalls were selling meat or products from birds and mammals, including chickens, ducks, geese, pheasants and doves; and deer, badgers, rabbits, bamboo rats, porcupines and hedgehogs. According to the market authorities, all of these animals were from licensed farms and no illegal trade in wildlife was detected.
> The authorities tested 457 samples from 188 animals spanning 18 species. They all proved negative for SARS-CoV-2 genetic material. This included 27 stray cats (a species that is susceptible to the virus), which were presumably living free in or around the market, as well as 52 rabbits and hares, 16 hedgehogs, ten mice, seven dogs, six muntjac deer, six badgers, six bamboo rats, a number of pigs, five chickens, three giant salamanders, two wild boar, two crocodiles, two soft-shelled turtles, two fish, one sheep and one weasel. They tested 616 animals of ten species from the suppliers to the market and found no sign of SARS-CoV-2 genetic material.
Note that this doesn't imply the lab-leak hypothesis, as the human in the second case may have contracted the virus from an animal elsewhere.
It is not just a coincidence, but a plausible hypothesis, just like the hypothesis that it is a zoonosis from an exotic animal market.
I think we have to take all possible causes seriously. Act as if it was a zoonosis and act as if it was a lab leak, in order to prevent another pandemic.
(Actually, I think the lab leak is both the more scary and the easier to prevent cause, so no matter what actually happened we should try to shut down this possibility as much as possible in the future.)
Again, if it's zoonotic it's surprising that it would emerge in a city with much less animal trade than somewhere like Guangdong, and in the slow months of that trade.
My point here is assuming zoonotic origin, it isn't a one in a trillion coincidence that Wuhan has a coronavirus lab. It has a coronavirus lab for the same reasons a zoonotic origin appears likely - it is within trading/sampling expedition distance to bat caves and is an urban hub. Perhaps Guangdong still was the more likely candidate for a pandemic emergence, but based on what we know today Wuhan appears to be 1-in-100 betting favourite, plus or minus an order of magnitude.
"(4) (FALSE) Wuhan is a place where SARS transmits from animals into humans frequently. That's why the Wuhan Institute of Virology was built there.
Actually, Wuhan is ~1000km away from SARS spillover zones. Its human population was even used as a negative (no SARS) control group."
1. Wuhan is not known for spillover.
2. Cave visits did happen but this has never been connected to the 3 "sick researchers" reported by US intel.
3. Sure, lab origin, zoonosis, engineering or not, all still on the table, just factually what OP wrote was inaccurate or misleading.
Also, I believe that the first recorded outbreak of SARS was in Guangdong while the origin of the virus was eventually found to be in Yunnan, 1000+km away.
The closest related natural viruses to SARS-CoV2 were not found in Wuhan. They were found in caves in Yunnan, and possibly Laos.
> The same caves three of that lab's researchers went into before becoming hospitalized with a flu-like illness in December of 2019
Again, Yunnan, not Wuhan. The researchers worked at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Noted, about "nearby", edited.
ETA: parent comment (to their credit!) edited the above to remove the world "nearby" either while I was replying or right after. Still leaving this comment up because it's worth pointing out just how far those caves are from Wuhan.
14^2 * pi * 59 = 36,329 km2
36,329 / 148,326,000 = 0.000245
No to mention that the outbreak is the first known one, not the origin which - if not spread from a lab - is likely somewhere considerably more rural and less likely to attract attention. Took 15 years to trace the probable natural origin of SARS in China (1000km away from the first city outbreak, 1km from a neighbouring village) which wasn't as highly politicised. The subsequent lab-originated local SARS outbreaks were traced to people associated with the labs more easily (though again, they weren't as highly politicised).
Epidemiologists conducted an extensive investigation to trace the origin. The probability of detection is not higher in the city. So I'm afraid that's incorrect. You're not making any sense here. You're disputing both the lab leak theory and the wet market theory? You're just shifting the goalposts to fit your argument.
Of course a novel coronavirus - especially one that does not produce severe or unusual symptoms in most infected people - is more likely to be identified when it becomes established in a city where it spreads quickly to many people with access to good healthcare, not a rural area where there are fewer people and more basic healthcare which infected people are less likely to use. This is why the outbreak of the original SARS novel coronavirus was identified in an urban area 1000 miles from the suspected zoonotic source of the virus, not in the neighbouring village whose unidentified inhabitants (or animal produce) most likely transmitted it to the city. It is not me "shifting the goalposts" that you continue to pretend I didn't point that out in my first post.
> "About 90% of the earth’s people live on only 10% of the land."
And let's assume that all of those 59 labs are in that 10% as well.
I'm sure it's actually smaller than that - since not all of that 10% of the land has enough density to be the epicenter of an outbreak, but... let's roll with that 10%
That'd put you off by a factor of 10.
14^2 * pi * 59 = 36,329 km2 148,326,000 * 10% = 14,832,600
36,329 / 14,832,600 = 0.00245 aka 0.2%
On top of that there have been multiple tries at this - in recent memory we've seen SARS classic, Covid-19, MERS-CoV, and Swine Flu. That's four chances at a target at least as big as 0.2%.
My probabilities are rusty, but I believe that's 99.8% * 99.8% * 99.8% * 99.8% = 99.2% chance of none of those appearing near a lab or an 0.8% chance it was near a lab. If we take that into account, it starts to seem a bit more likely that we'd see something like this...
And let's not even touch the > 1300 BLS3 labs that are out there.
Do you not find it absurd in the extreme that the novel Coronavirus lab a few km from the outbreak of a novel coronavirus was barred from investigation?
Is it not a giant raging blinking neon clue that when Australia wanted an investigation China threatened them with economic apocalypse?
And in this context, you think a .8% chance that it would appear near a lab is high enough to discount the possibility??? My head is exploding.
I wasn’t trying to prove a point, I was trying to dis-prove a point: that you can’t prove the lab leaks based on geography alone. 0.02% chance is VERY unlikely - it’s not proof but it sure does suggest. A 0.2% chance or a 0.8% chance is… well it’s still rare, but not shockingly rare. Again I suspect the geographic odds are even higher, if you properly correlate outbreak-size population density and labs. Bsl3 labs brings the odds closer to 5% (or 19% if you count the four other novel disease incidents and I’m doing my probability math right).
Again, none of this disproves a lab leak. But it sure does tell us that we can’t prove it with geography, as the post I was responding to suggested.
Authorities seem to stand behind the Wuhan "wet market" theory but there's really no evidence of that, specifically if it came from an animal population, how come 2+ years later we haven't found that animal population? Also the bat coronavirus population is hundreds of miles away so how did this end up in Wuhan?
This brings us to the "lab leak" theory. There are lots of possibilities here. If this is true (and that's a mighty big IF) then my suspicion is that this was an accident and the CCP doesn't necessarily know what happened but there's absolutely incentivized not to find out. I find claims that this was a deliberate release to be unconvincing.
The key factors supporting this theory, or at least are open questions requiring further investigation are:
1. There's really no compelling alternative theory supported by substantial evidence;
2. The WHO has really lost a lot of credibility here. In early 2020, the WHO was bending over backwards not to upset China and not much has changed. In 2021 there was a joint investigation with the Chinese but the scope was pretty limited;
3. There used to be a database of coronaviruses that China had. In late 2019 this was taken offline. To date AFAIK this has never been examined by WHO investigators or any independent authority. Now this doesn't prove anything by itself but you'd think a thorough investigation would include examining it in its scope.
4. A long time (over a year) passed between the start of the outbreak and the investigation. This is a long time for evidence to go cold or "missing".
To compare, the origins of two previous coronavirus outbreaks (ie SARS and MERS) were relatively quickly identified.
No lab worker or official wants to be responsible for a leak (if there was one). No one wants to find out they were responsible. The CCP also doesn't want to set the precedent they're answerable or accountable to international authorities. This is what I mean when I say I suspect the CCP doesn't know and doesn't want to know.
Secondly you discuss the lab leak theory at length and construct the state of being that because not A it must be B but there is no dichotomy here, there are many choices, including the fantastical which break Occam's razor but alas may turn out to be true. Simply because we have not found a wild host does not make lableak "true" or even more likely.
I have no idea what the origin is. I'm not in the field, I'm not competent to judge. What I read suggests most people who are competent to judge want more evidence.
If your point is that the CCPs exclusion of external verification of theories is proof, I'm sorry but it's just not proof: there are many reasons why the Chinese government does this, guilt is not a given although fear of guilt is plausible. Shaming the state is not easy or wise for people in this political system and "Strong China" Plays inside the government and the party (they are different things btw) as well as differences between ministries, departments, provinces, external parties make this a very complex problem.
Power struggles often have nothing to do with the ostensible reasons they are fought over.
In a field like mathematics it's obvious that we don't have the necessary tools to evaluate expert evidence, but the same is true in most complex fields, of which epidemiology is certainly one. The experts of course won't always be right, and their best guesses will evolve as more evidence is gathered, as they should. But asking people without specific domain knowledge, even intelligent generalists, to independently weight expert evidence without resorting to trust of experts is likely to result in less informed decision making, not more.
We can't let the sheep make up their own minds, we have to make up their minds for them; for they are only sheep of course, and we are the pigs.
I mean, what would happen in one of those stupid sheep had a thought to themselves? They might think
Hey isn't that a coronavirus reasearch lab right down the street? Maybe
they know something about this new coronavirus?
....
Human beings are built to defer to *legitamite* authority, its a principle of how we organize ourselves. Doesn't matter if its mathematics or goverment. But that legitamacy must be demonstrated. If a mathematician fails to answer basic mathematical questions, then his authority on the subject comes into question. When the authorities fail to answer basic questions (like where did this virus come from? Why aren't we investigating the wuhan lab? Why was Fauci funding it? Why was the man in charge of the WHO investigation the man who was in charge of funding it?), they are failing to demonstrate *legitamite* authority. In a functioning democracy, that failure would be met with replacement.
I also judge most people's opinions are being formed from at best secondary and probably tertiary sources.
I personally think your clarion call isn't helping.
The fact that a lab leak was even possible but it took over a year to get any researchers into the lab is a serious issue for data collection, not to mention the fact that the CCP got to pick those researchers and didn't share any lab records.
Its important that we learn from how this played out, but seems very unrealistic to think we could pinpoint the initial transmission event now.
What definitive evidence can we provide of an animal host now? What definitive evidence can we provide of a lab leak? Of a deliberate release?
I don't think we can provide definitive evidence for any of the options, that proponents of another theory, even the reasonable ones, will accept, so ... I believe it is exactly 3 angels.
Does it? It's brought up in nearly every covid related thread both here and on Reddit. I couldn't avoid talking about it or reading about it even if I tried.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/352536433_Prometheu...
His research is ongoing: https://prometheusshrugged.substack.com/
Covid is here and we have to cope with it. It's just our stupid monkey brains that thrive on x did y to z narratives that are demanding answers, as if they were in any way relevant.
If it was a lab accident that's extremely important to know as we could easily mitigate (or eliminate) that risk. If it was zoological, there may be changes that could make that less likely. If it was a third cause that no one is even thinking about, that's even more important because it somehow was missed by everyone looking for the most likely cause.
Wonder if insurance companies would generally have the same opinion.
If there was an actually provable origin, do you reckon insurance companies _wouldn't_ give them the bill? ;)
China has closed the book on this discussion. There's no further steps to take on the matter, even if you had unassailable proof, unless you wish to go to war.
Nobody wants to go to war (like that, anyway - the CIA may well wish to step up the trade war, based on how much anti-China sentiment is being stoked in the US population over the last dozen years).
This is gross oversimplification. The fact that some scientists may know doesn't imply that the only possibility is deliberate action.
Since there have been a lot of money poured on Coronaviruses research in the last decade, it's reasonable that, (important!) even not assuming a lab leak (/important!), scientists working on it, don't want to disclose it.
Even those who didn't work on it are disincentived to talk about it, as their reputation is on the line (in particular, because of the misguided opinion that lab leak equals bioengineerd virus). A few co-subscribers of the Lancet letter changed their mind on the topic. It doesn't surprise me that they did it only recently - precisely because their position is now less endangered.
> This pandemic was predicted for many years by scientist
It's hard to extract any value from this, especially without a very serious analysis, because at any point in time, there will be people predicting that events of any kind will happen.
What do you know that the U.S. president and U.S. intelligence doesn't?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/wuhan-coron...
> The two main hypotheses — that the virus jumped from animals to humans in a natural process, or that it escaped from a research laboratory in China — remain on the table, ODNI said. Both theories are plausible, the agencies concluded.
Fact check: false. The early cases in Wuhan almost all cluster near the wet market, not the virology lab, which is on the outskirts of town on the other side of the river some ~30km from the market. (And to the extent they don't cluster near that market, they do favor quite strongly the market's side of the river, not the virology lab's side of the river.)
> Biden called for U.S. intelligence to figure out if the original virus came from a lab
Because a government has never, ever called for an investigation or an action to be taken because of political pressure despite its internal knowledge bases saying there is no need to investigate it.
To be considered:
> the Wuhan CDC ‘hosted animals in laboratories for research purpose, one of which was specialized in pathogens collection and identification’. Moreover, the Xiaos described how a lead researcher at this laboratory who collected bats had featured in articles and at least one broadcast video revealing that ‘he was once attacked by bats and the blood of a bat shot on his skin. He knew the extreme danger of the infection so he quarantined himself for 14 days. In another accident, he quarantined himself again because bats peed on him.’ Given that ‘surgery was performed on the caged animals and the tissue samples were collected for DNA and RNA extraction and sequencing’, relatively close to the Huanan seafood market where clusters of Covid-19 cases had been detected, it was reasonable to ask whether an accident had occurred, the two scientists argued.
If a case like this was hypothetically true, it would sit on a line between zoonotic origin and lab leak. Remember that lab leak doesn't imply bioengineering.
> the virology lab, which is [...] some ~30km from the market.
Independently of lab leak or not, this is wrong. You can check on google maps that by car (and even more in a straight line), is less than 15 km.
Crucially, however, the now famous “earliest” COVID-19 case (1), a 41-year-old male accountant, who lived 30 km south of Huanan Market and had no connection to it—illness onset reported as 8 December—may have become ill with COVID-19 considerably later. . . . This suggests that he may have been infected through community transmission after the virus had begun spreading from Huanan Market.
[C]onclusive evidence of a Huanan Market origin from infected wildlife may nonetheless be obtainable through analysis of spatial patterns of early cases and from additional genomic data, including SARS-CoV-2–positive samples from Huanan Market, as well as through integration of additional epidemiologic data. Preventing future pandemics depends on this effort.
[EDIT:] But you're right about the "deliberate inaction". The obvious way to fight pandemics (as opposed to less contagious health threats) is to make sure everyone in society has access to relevant health care and other vital resources. This came naturally to many societies that earned much lower covid death rates than USA earned.